Jim Carrey's Gay Prison Love Story: Oscar Underdog?

Stateside, the Village Voice called Carrey's turn as Steven Russell "the best performance of Carrey's career." Entertainment Weekly raved, "'I Love You Phillip Morris' pulls off ingenious schemes of its own: It dramatizes a highly unusual relationship -- that's an understatement -- between two men in which homosexual love and sex, ardently enacted on screen in a finely tuned tour-de-force interplay between two movie stars, is just another piece of the story."

Maybe it will be a major player in the upcoming awards season. Maybe, as E! Online's Malkin predicts, the various academies will shy away in favor of the "family-friendly or more subtle" fare that they usually honor. But regardless, "I Love You Phillip Morris" will be remembered for being the first mainstream movie to "go there" when it comes to homosexual sex, and to do so while telling a riveting tale.

"We hope audiences will be intrigued by what is a wholly fascinating true account of a man driven to outlandish and creative extremes by his love for someone, and recognize the even hand with which the film treats the same-sex relationship at its core," said Jarrett Barrios, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defmation (GLAAD), which has been a vocal supporter of "I Love You Phillip Morris" since its Sundance premiere."At the end of the day, this is a film about love, not sexual orientation."